


No Place for No Hero

by DoreyG



Category: DCU, Superman: The Animated Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Zombies, Character Death, Community: comment_fic, Community: trope_bingo, Dark, Everybody Dies, F/F, F/M, Gen, God this Fic Has so Many Warnings I am a Terrible Person, Interviews, Major Character Undeath, Murder, Transcribed, Violence, World War Z Fusion, Zombie Apocalypse, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-13
Updated: 2015-02-13
Packaged: 2018-03-12 04:52:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3344318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoreyG/pseuds/DoreyG
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Below is the full interview transcript for the interview conducted by Lois Lane, former head reporter for the Daily Planet, with Mercy Graves, former assistant of the late Alexander Luthor. This may contain errors. If they prove to be the biggest thing wrong with your life, then please fuck off and get one.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Place for No Hero

**Author's Note:**

  * For [likewinning](https://archiveofourown.org/users/likewinning/gifts).



_Below is the full interview transcript for the interview conducted by Lois Lane, former head reporter for the Daily Planet, with Mercy Graves, former assistant of the late Alexander Luthor. This may contain errors. If they prove to be the biggest thing wrong with your life, then please fuck off and get one._

LL: Good- what time of the day is it?

MG: I don’t know how you expect me to know, Lane.

LL: You were Luthor’s assistant for _years_ , Graves. Right up to the point where he tried to eat your brain and you shot him in the head. I assume you picked up some skills.

MG: …Some point in the afternoon, I think. Possibly late afternoon. We should probably get moving. They’re going to start coming out soon.

LL: After this.

MG: Can’t it wait?

LL: It’s _waited_ for the past however many weeks, Graves. I’m not willing to let it go again, just so _you_ can indulge in your ridiculous desire to march us up and down the country.

MG: …Fine.

LL: _Good_.

MG: Better get started then, right?

LL: _Right_. Good afternoon, Ms Graves, and thank you for consenting to be interviewed by me today. This will be of much use in my project to piece together a testimony of the undead event, using the words of the people who actually lived through it.

MG: Yeah, whatever. Can’t you just use the term zombie apocalypse, like a normal human being?

LL: Zombie apocalypse sounds ridiculous, _undead event_ … Ahem, anyway. Could you tell us a bit about yourself, just to provide a bit of context?

MG: I’m not all that interesting.

LL: That’s a lie and I, and my listeners, _know_ it.

MG: Fine, _fine_. My name is Mercy Gwendoline Graves. I was born in Metropolis, though my parents may well have come from elsewhere for all I know. I never knew my father, my mother died when I was… Very young. I grew up on the streets, did a few things that don’t really need to be recorded for _posterity_. In time, Luthor found me. He raised me up from the gutter, cleaned me up. Made me his right-hand woman and- don’t make that face.

LL: The recording can’t see my face.

MG: But I can, and I’m telling you to _stop making it_ … Unless you want me to attract some zombies?

LL: You wouldn’t.

MG: Try me, princess.

LL: …Fine. My apologies, wasn’t very professional of me. You worked with him for years before the event, right?

MG: Yup.

LL: And you were close?

MG: …Look, does this really have to go on record?

LL: For context, _yes_.

MG: …Fine. We were very close, yes. He was my friend, my mentor, my brother in some ways and- more. I cared more for him than I ever did anybody else, and I _don’t_ think that’s going to change anytime soon.

LL: Don’t look at me, toots, I’m _fine_ with us being reluctant allies and little more… Moving on, for the sake of the recording. What happened in the months leading up to the event?

MG: I’m sure you could find somebody far better qualified to detail the global spread to you. That is, if they haven’t already been eaten.

LL: Har har. I mean what happened with _you_ , personally?

MG: …Life, at first, went on as normal. There were disturbing reports, of course, but we were largely able to ignore them. We were on top of the world, we thought nothing could stop us. Who cared about some odd rumbles from distant countries, the desperate news of the walking dead? They were horror stories, the words of madmen and hysterics. Whatever was happening, we were sure that it’d sort itself out without coming anywhere near us.

LL: And when did you realize that it was actually serious?

MG: The day that I had to shoot my boss in the head.

LL: _Mercy_.

MG: …It’s going to sound very stereotypical, but I don’t really give a shit. It was the day that Gotham fell, the day that footage of Batman – or what _used_ to be Batman - lunging for the cameraman emerged. You probably remember it, everybody with _eyes_ probably remembers it. I’ve seen some shit, but _that_ -

LL: Yeah.

MG: Yeah. You dated him once, didn’t you?

LL: _That_ \- that’s besides the point, Graves. Where were you, when you saw the footage?

MG: In Luthor’s office, where else? We watched it on one of his big screens – him, and me, and several of his twittering business advisors. So scared for their own skin, even then. Probably dead now, and… Ah, I don’t really want that recorded for posterity either. They weren’t worth it, even then. They _certainly_ aren’t worth it now.

LL: Ever lovely.

MG: You met Luthor a fair few times, didn’t you Lane?

LL: Er, not entirely sure how this is relevant… But yes. He even tried to kill me once or twice. So, yeah, I think that makes us as thick as thieves.

MG: Then you’ll know that he was never really… _Scared_. Angry, yes. Annoyed, yes. I even saw him _flustered_ a few times. But he was never, no matter how bad the situation was, scared. He was the only man who could respond to Superman holding him over the city, threatening to drop him, with _laughter_. It was one of the things I admired most about him.

LL: And this is leading where…?

MG: He was scared that day. He dismissed all his minions out of the room, stared into space for a long few minutes and then turned to me and said… And said “I’m not going to lie to you, Mercy. Nobody is likely to get out of this alive.” Exactly like that. Exactly with those words.

LL: …Shit.

MG: You’re telling me.

LL: _Shit_ … Ah, fuck, that’s not going to look very good on the recording. Um, _shit_. So, uh, what happened after that then? After he gave the terrible prophecy of doom and gloom?

MG: What happened to everybody else, I suspect. Doom and gloom. The zombies spread rapidly, any idiot can tell you that. Any city in the way they devoured, there were almost no survivors left. Blockade after blockade fell, everybody was helpless before them. And after seeing Batman, like _that_ … Well, I think nobody actually wanted to be help _ful_. Easier to give up and die, than try to keep living in a world where _that_ sort of thing could happen.

LL: Where were you, on the day Metropolis fell?

MG: ‘On the Day Metropolis Fell’, such a grand title… To tell you the truth, it wasn’t all that dramatic. Luthor had seen it coming, he saw _everything_ coming and you know that as well as I do, and so had already sequestered us away. Up in his tower, where not a single zombie could get to us. It was a sensible theory, really. Until-

LL: Until?

MG: I’m _getting there_. God. Uh, the fall of Metropolis for me was about a week after the fall of Metropolis for the rest of you. It’d seemed an ordinary day, at first – or, at least, as ordinary as it could _be_ considering how things had become. I got up, an hour or two before Luthor. Washed, ate breakfast, worked out to keep myself in fighting shape. And then Luthor got up. Did much the same as me, without so much exercise, then decided to get down to work. Took me up to his office, where he could look over the city in chaos as per usual, and- And…

LL: And then?

MG: And then, Lane, you know very well what happened. Superman came in through the window, grabbed Luthor up before I could stop him. By the time I nailed him, two Kryptonite bullets to the head and aren’t I glad that _that_ worked, he’d already got Luthor in the arm.

LL: And so you had to shoot Luthor in the head too.

MG: Don’t sound so _smug_ , you-

LL: I’m not.

MG: Ugh.

LL: I lost somebody _too_ that day, you know.

MG: _Ugh_.

LL: …So. What happened next?

MG: The building was breached, and breached _severely_. You know what Superman was like, he’d never even _heard_ of the word subtlety. It was a choice between waiting for the zombies to climb up to me, or waiting for the rubble to bury me alive. Neither of them entirely great options, as you can probably tell. 

LL: But you chose neither.

MG: Because I’m not an idiot. I knew, then, that I was probably going to die and I didn’t just want to fade away. To just give up, and _crumble_ like some weakling. If I had to die, then I was going to do it _gloriously_ \- in battle, with the corpses of my enemies strewn around me and my honour firmly intact.

LL: How Spartan of you. So?

MG: So _what_?

LL: So what did you _do_?

MG: …I got out. I went to my room, gathered my things, and headed down as fast as I could. The only stop I made was at the kitchens, to gather supplies just in case I did actually survive. Then it was out of the building and _away_ , to face whatever else the universe had in store for me.

LL: You didn’t take anybody else?

MG: I sounded the alarm, what more do you want? Shit, _look_. To take anybody else would’ve slowed me down, and made us all targets. It was kinder to leave them behind, to let them make their own way. It might seem odd to you, princess of the Daily Planet, but I was actually doing them a _favour_.

LL: And have you heard from any of them since?

MG: _Fuck_ -

LL: How soon were you attacked, after you left the building?

MG: I had some breathing space, luckily. It was morning, which perhaps explains why Superman had been so confused. The sun came up, he got stunned, he flew into the building… Or he just did it deliberately, because he hated Luthor, what do I know? The point _is_ that most of the zombies were hidden away, happily asleep for a few hours yet.

LL: So it was a while, before you encountered the undead?

MG: Pretty much the whole day, as I recall. Long enough that I was almost out of Metropolis. If I hadn’t taken so many breaks… But, no, that would’ve been even worse. I would’ve just tired myself out, then, and would’ve been dead meat. Even more pathetic than if I’d just stayed in the tower and twiddled my thumbs.

LL: What was Metropolis like?

MG: You saw it… But alright, _alright_ , for your future listeners: it was a wasteland, the most advanced city in the world transformed into an apocalyptic nightmare in less than a week. There was still blood on the walls, still a few bodies to steer clear of, but no other signs of life. The takeover had been swift, _brutal_ \- what else do you expect when one of the first to fall is Superman, pillar of the community? The only things left were empty buildings. Well, I say empty-

LL: Full of zombies?

MG: I didn’t check, I got out of there as fast as possible, but I’m assuming so. Perfect places to hide from the sun, I’m assuming.

LL: Ah, if only Luthor hadn’t been so paranoid…

MG: Ugh.

LL: So then what happened, exactly?

MG: I marched out of the city, as fast as possible.

LL: And when were you attacked?

MG: It was just before the sun set. I was, perhaps unwisely, pushing myself to get out of the city. To find a nice tree, just beyond the border, and attempt to curl up for the night. I wasn’t paying as much attention as I should’ve been. My foot caught on a bit of pavement, one that _really_ should’ve been repaired long ago-

LL: Should’ve raised it with Luthor.

MG: -Har har – and I fell. I twisted, so as not to sprain my ankle or worse, and something in the movement caused my gun to go off. The bullet smashed through a window on the other side of the street, I froze… And before I knew it zombies were starting to emerge. Slow, sluggish because it was still just about daylight, but from pretty much everywhere. It looked like there were _hundreds_ of them.

LL: And how many were there, actually?

MG: …That’s not important.

LL: I think it is.

MG: I think it _isn’t_.

LL: I think my listeners…

MG: _Fuck_ , fine. I think there were actually about thirty five, tops, but I was a little exhausted and a little panicked and it’d been a _long day_. Happy now?

LL: Very. What did you do?

MG: What any sane person would do. I lurched to my feet, and I ran as fast as I could. They were still sluggish – I’ve mentioned – and so it seemed like a safe bet. A few of them tried to grab me, one or two of them even got _close_ , but I was past them before they could lay a finger on me. They were lurching after me, yes, but I thought I was _safe_. Sunset was a few minutes away, the city limits were just in front of me, I _thought_ -

LL: Wrong, I’m guessing?

MG: I wasn’t paying attention, again. So caught up in my triumph, that… He’d obviously been a tramp or something, living in a woodshed or something. Looked like one of the first who’d been bitten, judging by the rot. He grabbed me, just as I’d almost got beyond the last house – dragged me back, loomed over me. I thought that was it. I readied my gun, prepared to die screaming and-

LL: And then?

MG: …Do I have to say it?

LL: _Graves_.

MG: _Ugh_. And then a plucky lady reporter, soon to become the bane of my life, came out of nowhere and brained him for me. Recognized my face, called me an idiot – and offered to show me her hiding place for some strange reason that I haven’t quite figured out yet.

LL: Maybe it’s because she was a nice person.

MG: Maybe it’s because she’s a _bitch_ who likes holding things over people.

LL: Both work… You weren’t attacked again that night?

MG: No, we weren’t. We passed a perfectly lovely night, coiled together on top of a nice house, and… Look, shouldn’t you be telling the story from here?

LL: It wouldn’t suit my project.

MG: In what _way_ would it not suit your project?

LL: _Graves_.

MG: _Lane_.

LL: _Mercy_.

MG: …We weren’t attacked again that night. When we woke up, in the morning, I shared some of my food with her and we discussed what to do next. Where we should go, what we should aim for, whether we should just fight to the death then and save ourselves the trouble.

LL: And what was decided?

MG: Not to murder each other, which I’m still thinking was a mistake… And to stick together, because we had a better chance, that way. She was smart, I was tough. Together, we thought, we could watch each other’s backs and stay alive just a little longer. We decided to aim for the equator, oddly enough – under the assumption that the longer the days, the fewer the zombies. And if we found any surviving humans, along the way-

LL: Did you?

MG: Not yet, but she eternally lives in hope.

LL: And you?

MG: …Well, I no longer wish to murder her, at the very least.

LL: …That’s something, I suppose.

MG: Yeah.

LL: Mm.

MG: …Did you hear that?

LL: Was that a shuffle?

MG: I think so. Time to wrap up this interview shit and get on the road again, Lane.

LL: Such a cow.

MG: Such a _bitch_.

LL: And you couldn’t live without me.

_End transcription_.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the "AU: Apocalypse" Square on my Trope_Bingo, also written for Likewinning's prompt "DCU, any, World War Z" at Comment_Fic. "I need to write something longer than 1000 words," I said, "I know! An apocalypse AU where MOST OF MY FAVOURITE CHARACTERS DIE HORRIBLY! That's the ticket!"
> 
> ...I HAD A MOMENT, OKAY?!
> 
> (I do want to expand on this universe a bit, at some point, so maybe expect more at some point in the future. Harley Quinn, for instance, has definitely survived. SO.)


End file.
